OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina and UN Women promote gender-responsive budgeting in Prijedor City and municipalities of Lukavac, Odžak and Šamac

As a part of their effort to improve status of women and girls, including through Gender Responsive Budgeting, the OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina and the UN Women signed a Memorandum of Understanding today, on 16 June 2015, with Mayors and representatives of the Prijedor City and municipalities of Lukavac, Odžak and Šamac.

The Memorandum formalizes the agreement on implementing the “Initiative for the Introduction of Gender Responsive Budgeting at the Local Level” project. The Project aims to better reflect the gender equality concerns of the programmes and budgets at the local level, strengthen oversight of local government policies, programmes, plans and budgets toward gender equality commitments as well as facilitate the replication of good practices and lessons learned.

The Director of the OSCE Mission’s Human Dimension Department, Kendall  Palmer, noted that the OSCE Mission to BiH recognizes gender equality as a substantive element of peace, democracy and security. “The process of introducing gender-responsive budgeting also foresees the participation and co-operation of the executive and representative branches of government, as well as citizens. Therefore, other aspects of governance are expected to improve co-operation between assemblies/councils’ bodies, the executive branch and citizens.”

Anne-Marie Esper Larsen of UN Women said: “Gender-responsive budgeting is a fantastic tool for modern management not least in the public sector. In local governments it gives mayors and the budget committees an excellent starting point for achieving results that will benefit all citizens of their communities – men as well as women. Including gender aspects in design of policies and budgets is a modern way of bringing communities towards political goals set by the local government.”

“In UN Women we are pleased that the mayors of Lukavac, Šamac, Odžak and the city of Prijedor have shown timely political leadership by committing their staff to GRB training and we are confident that the four municipalities and its citizens will benefit substantially from the training,” said Larsen.

Gender-responsive budgeting is a governmental planning, programming and budgeting methodology that contributes to the advancement of gender equality and the fulfilment of the human rights of women.

The project will last from 16 June to 31 December 2015.